Integrating Middle School Standards Through Stations

By: Samantha Martinez

Gail and Dave Vawter talked about how working through stations is a great way to teach middle school kids. They start off by asking the crowd, “What do you think a station is?” The answers varied from groups of children talking together to just simple things like a way to have fun. Gail Vawter says that there is no right answer to this question; a station is something to just teach your kids to work together in small groups.

Why use stations? If you are teaching kids it is a great way to get them to interact with each other and move around. They both talked about how it was especially great for middle school kids to talk with one another and move around because they sit around all day in class. It’s also great to use stations because if it’s something like a hands on project you don’t have the whole class trying to get a turn all at once you can have that be a station of its own.

I feel like stations would be a fun and different way of working with my class. It would also be nice to get up and stretch instead of sitting and working out of a book.

This conference newsletter was written by student reporters from Robert Gray Middle School, Portland, Oregon.